


For Life

by LastHope



Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Backstory, Beating a guy to death, Beginnings, Death, Gen, How Slon got his start, Murder, Nameless Character - Freeform, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-15
Updated: 2016-09-15
Packaged: 2018-08-15 06:11:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8045371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LastHope/pseuds/LastHope
Summary: "I'm in this for life."
A short story on Slon's beginning





	For Life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [itsnotlove](https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsnotlove/gifts).



_19XX, An alley, Kazan, Russia_

 

He made the decision when he was thirteen.

Street rat living each day like it was his last on the streets of Kazan, he had to do anything to scrape by each day and survive.

That fateful day, he had made a fatal mistake - he ducked down a side alley to avoid the _militsiya_. If he was caught, he would no doubt be put in a workhouse, or some other place that would be certain death for someone his age. Prior to entering the ally, he had thought he had known all the alleys of Kazan, knew who lurked where and when, but it turned out he was wrong. Wrong, or incredibly unlucky.

Grabbed from behind, an arm went around his neck while a hand covered his mouth to keep him from screaming out. Erroneously, he had believed the _militsiya_  to be looking for him, for any street rat that might be littering the street today, but he was wrong. He recalled hearing word on the street the night before, whispers through the cracks of a wanted murderer haunting the streets, but the knowledge had slipped his memory. At the time, it hadn’t been important - not as important as begging pelmeni off of the old woman running the kiosk. 

“Scream and I will snap your neck,” The man breathed, hot down his neck, but he knew that it wouldn’t matter if he screamed or not. Even if the _militsiya_  came running, surely they would let the man kill him before taking the murderer in. After all, what was the death of one street rat to them? Not much.

Nights spent loitering in parks and near bars, near tourists and the like wandering the darkness like it was an enemy and not the friend it was to him had given him ear to tips on how to take down attackers. He lifted his foot, and stomped his heel down as hard as he could on the top of his attacker’s foot. The pain made the attacker gasp in surprise, loosening his hold - not enough for him to escape, but enough for him to at least turn around and knee the guy in the balls.

 The guy crumpled, hands moving to his groin as he howled in pain. Logically, he should be running - all the tips he heard had told him the point of incapacitating was escape, not to try and beat an attacker who was bigger than him. But logic wasn’t running for him, not now. Instead, his eyes darted furiously around the alley looking for something, anything, he wasn’t sure what, until his eyes fell on the pipe.

Pure adrenaline was what had him picking the pipe up, adrenaline was what had him bashing his attacker on the head with the pipe not once, not twice, he lost count how many times. All he knew was that he kept beating on the man’s head, bashing it in, until it was beaten and bloodied and the man was no longer moving. Until he was dead.

From behind him, he could hear footsteps, but it wasn’t until he heard the shouts of the _militsiya_  that he realized what he had done. He didn’t drop the pipe as he ran, no, that would be stupid. Even if he knew that his fingerprints weren’t on record, he wasn’t giving them any way to pin what was veritably an accident on him as a murder.

He fled, running, outrunning, the _militsiya_  for what felt like hours, taking advantage of a high volume of tourists and his medium stature for his age to nimbly sift in between and through people. Racing over a bridge, he flung the pipe into the Kazanka River as he passed, the pipe arcing down into the watery depths below. With how fast the river moved, they’d have no hope of finding it before it rusted, or it was far away and he was long gone.

Before long, night fell, and he ducked into a different, empty, alley, hiding behind a dumpster to catch his breath. He stayed there no longer than fifteen, maybe twenty minutes, but it no matter how long it was it was too long. When he finally caught his breath, thought it was safe to poke his head back out onto the streets to beg off of kiosks and stores that were throwing out the day’s wares, he got caught.

Not by the _militsiya,_  no - someone else.

“This the little brat?” One man asked, grabbing him by the shoulder as he attempted to exit the alley, pulling him back in and turning him around.

“That’s him all right,” The other said, nodding, and he wished he hadn’t tossed the pipe. “Bashed Pavel’s head in like it was nothing.”

“What’s your name brat?” The first man addressed him.

“Don’t got one.” He replied, eyes darting around the alley, trying to find something to use against the two men. He wasn’t far from the entrance, and there was enough foot traffic that someone would hear him if he shouted, but something told him that these men weren’t here to kill him. Not yet. He also knew that if he tried to run they probably would kill him.

“What do you mean ‘don’t got one’? Every brat’s got a name.” The first one snapped. “What is it?”

“Don’t have one.” He repeated.

“How come you don’t got a name?” The second man asked him. “You one a’ these street rats or somethin’?”

“Or somethin’.” He replied. “Alleys are where I grew up, they are what I know.” He shrugged. “Who needs a name when everyone refers to you as the ghost child anyways?”

The two men looked at one another, holding a conversation without words, before they turned back to him.

“How would you like a place to stay kid?” The second one asked. “Two meals a day, an easy job, a pay you get to keep?”

“What’s the catch?” He retaliated immediately. “You’re offering me all this, what’s the catch? What aren’t you telling me?”

A lot, he would later find, but in the moment all he was told was,

“You gotta say you’re in this for life, kid.” The first man said, looking down at him with eyes that said he didn’t think this brat could take it. “Can you make that big of a commitment? Agree to do this job til death?”

He didn’t know what the job was, but he knew what led ahead of him if he refused the offer: if these two men didn’t kill him, he would have to deal with the _militsiya._ He would have to deal with another coming, freezing, winter. He would have to continue scraping by, begging to survive.

He wasn’t a stupid kid, he had an idea of what he was getting into. He knew these weren’t ‘good’ people offering him a job. If they were friends with the guy - with Palev - that he killed back in the alley, that meant they were killers as well. Maybe assassins. He thought of killing the guy, of the chase afterwards, of the adrenaline that turned from a fear for his life to what seemed more of a pleasing rush. Thought how even though he ran, he felt no remorse for what he did. Thought of a place to sleep, of meals he didn’t have to beg for, of rubles that wouldn’t be taken from his hands with the cry of “thief!”, and how it was appealing. Very appealing.

So he steeled his posture and took a breath.

And made his choice. 

* * *

 

_?? years later, Ikebukuro, Japan_

 

“-and that’s how I got started.” Vorona concluded, looking over at her partner. “What about you, Slon? How did you get started in this business?”

It wasn’t out of curiosity she asked, simply pure reciprocation. She had shared her start, most likely out of a sense of building rapport with the man she had just fled to Japan with. Thought it best to know how much she could trust her fellow assassin and if they could trust one another.

“Me?” Slon shrugged. “I was a boy, and I was offered a choice. So I made my choice - said ‘ _I’m in this business for life_.’ And here I am. In it, for life.”

* * *

 


End file.
